I would say it's the property of a library IF the author gave permission for it to be in there. If not, it's plainly not unless the allotted time for it to be in the public domain has passed of course.

I see the Conservatory is also willing to sell a digital copy of Toscanini's Berceuse for nearly $42 (American) despite Toscanini's works still being under copyright protection until 2028 in Europe. Somehow I doubt the Toscanini estate has granted the Conservatory the right to do this. The free-in-Cananda-and-the-U.S. copy posted here on IMSLP has now been downloaded over 500 times!

Reopening an old thread here and I'm not even gonna apology for doing so.

To answer the orginal question, is the image the property of a library - the answer of course is, probalby not, at least not legally.

But how about morally?

And how about practically?

The moral aspect:Recently several scans from the Hudersfield collection in Ireland and from the National Spanish libraries have been posted here at IMSLP with the library copyright notices duly removed. Oh yes I believe you if you say their copyright claims don't stand a chance in court but even so, the people working there have spent lots of time scanning and preparing all those old editions for the benefit for anybody with an internet connection. Don't you think they deserve some recognition for that work?

The practical aspect:I'm not sure if evcerybody is aware of this but IMSLP has gradually become a rather prestigious organisation. What if somebody representing IMSLP aproached - say Hudleston (or any other large online library of sheet music) - and said, listen: we love your work and we want to place it into a bigger context. Can we republish your files? We'll happy to give you all the credit you want for the wonderful work you've done and it'll give your work a much wider audience and also save you a ton of bandwidth!Would they just say no? I don't think so and that leads me into...

My own selfish aspect:I'm not a public library nor do I work at one. But I am the webmaster of Musica Viva, one of the pioneer sites that brought free public domain sheet music freely to the intenret public at large years before IMSLP was even concieved. I believe that a public library would have replied more or less the same as I would: "Yes, that's an interesting proposition, I'm sure we can rach an agreement. Let's discuss the details."

With respect to the moral aspect I can point to the following: Scores from Biblioteca Digital Hispánica. We now have over 1,000 work pages with scores posted from BDH. On every one of those pages BDH is identified as the original scanner of the score. In many cases clicking on the linked name of the scanner will take you to the actual page for that particular work at BDH. If not, then it at least takes you to the main page for BDH. That is IMSLP's way of recognizing their efforts. The list of external library templates provides a very long list of the libraries and online collections from which scores have been re-posted to IMSLP and to which we try to give credit by including a link in the scanner field. I'm not familiar with the scores coming from the Huddersfield collection and we may not have set up a scanner template for it yet.

As for the practical aspect we do have an understanding with the Sibley Music Library to mirror their online collection. Also, the Royal Library, Denmark has allowed us to mirror the scores available at their site for the Carl Nielsen Edition. A music librarian at the University of Louisville has taken it upon himself to use IMSLP to host the scores in its collection (see here). Practically speaking though IMSLP is operated by a very small number of volunteers working on the site in their free time. Most of the time there is really only one person to review the copyright status of every score submitted! Approaching libraries with such offers takes time and effort and any resulting mirroring project would take even more. Also, I do believe there are many libraries that would quickly slam the door in our face. Look at the example above of the Conservatorio di Milano. Users like Gereroso and myself had to devise methods to get the high quality images from their online collection since they use a method that only offers the ability to zoom in to parts of the page at a high resolution. Their motive for doing this is obvious as they will gladly sell you a digital copy (of a public domain score) for a great deal of money. Perhaps it was in this thread or perhaps another one but I recall someone from a library (perhaps it was even the Conservatorio di Milano) responding that if users wanted the score (meaning one they couldn't download but only view online) then they could view it and create their own typeset of it! That doesn't sound like a librarian who would respond positively to an offer to mirror their collection on IMSLP.

cypressdome wrote:I'm not familiar with the scores coming from the Huddersfield collection and we may not have set up a scanner template for it yet.

That was my main worry and turns out I was wrong. I seriously messed up the name of the collection for a start (it's Hudleston, not Huddersfield) and it turns out the files from it are credited to the source. The reason I didn't notice is that they are listed under the name of the library (RIAM), not the name of the collection. Sorry about that.

cypressdome wrote:Also, the Royal Library, Denmark has allowed us to mirror the scores available at their site for the Carl Nielsen Edition.

And also their huge collections of guitar music and flute music. The Danes really have understood the advantages of IMSLP.

cypressdome wrote:A music librarian at the University of Louisville has taken it upon himself to use IMSLP to host the scores in its collection.

That's exactly how it should be done!

cypressdome wrote:(perhaps it was even the Conservatorio di Milano)

Didn't know of that one. That's downright rude! If they don't want to provide free dowloads at least they should have the courtesy not to waste everybody's bandwidth and time with oversized and useless files and scripts! Those fake download button are of course especially offensive.

Is this a question about acknowledging stewardship? The engraver? The copyist?... Every performance involves a host of people who turn the composer's score into something slightly different from the last time it was performed. Who acknowledges this? The audience? Libraries are stewards and facilitators. Where does "property" come into this?